magazine
34
Internet of Things
Smart technology
keeps Britain moving
Britain’s roads are getting busier.
There are now almost 35 million
registered vehicles in the country
1
,
and this figure is continuing to
rise, putting the Highways Agency
responsible for the UK’s motorways
and primary A-roads under constant
pressure to increase capacity.
One way of doing this is to add
lanes, but this is an expensive and time-
consuming process often involving land
purchases and major work to prepare
the terrain. An alternative is to use
technology to improve the flow of traffic.
A good example is the roll-out of
‘Smart Motorways’, the collective term
for roads that use technology to vary
speed limits or utilise the hard shoulder
as a driving lane. By adjusting speed
limits, opening the hard shoulder when
required or displaying information
messages to drivers, Highways Agency
regional control centres can increase the
number of cars that can safely use the
network.
Converting a stretch of road to Smart
Motorways typically costs between one
third and one half of the amount needed
to widen the same stretch of road.
Statistics show that Smart Motorways
also improve safety, reduce emissions
and make journey times more consistent
and reliable
2
.
Regional control rooms oversee
the motorways, but much of the
traffic management is carried out
automatically. For example, sensors
in the road detect how fast traffic is
moving, and therefore whether a queue
is beginning to form. If this happens,
they can send a message to overhead
gantries or roadside signs warning
drivers of congestion ahead and setting
appropriate speed limits.
Making it work
Traffic management technology can
be found right across the UK’s road
network, and without it schemes such as
Smart Motorways would not be possible.
For this technology to work, each piece
of equipment on the roadside needs to
know where it is in relation to all other
equipment around it.
When a sensor detects a queue
forming, it can request that warning
messages and speed restrictions are put
in place to protect approaching vehicles
and those already queueing. The system
that controls the roadside signs and
gantries needs to know which pieces
of equipment to activate and what
messages or speed limits each should
display e.g. a 60mph limit several miles
upstream and a 40mph restriction closer
to the scene, combined with ‘Queue
Caution’ messages.
To display the right message in the
right place, every piece of equipment
must be set up with the correct data
about its location and the location of
Smart technology accounts for a tiny percentage of the Highways
Agency’s budget, but without it, flagship schemes such as Smart
Motorways, which improve safety and boost road capacity, wouldn’t
be possible.
Regional
control rooms
oversee the
motorways,
but much of
the traffic
management
is carried out
automatically.
nearby equipment.Whenever equipment
is added to or removed from the
network, it is essential that location
information is updated correctly and that
the equipment is thoroughly tested to
make sure it will respond correctly when
faced with an incident.
Intuitive tools
This used to be a time-consuming
process, but with increasing amounts
of technology being rolled out across
the network, the Highways Agency has
been working closely with its long-term
partner IPL to come up with innovative
ways to speed up data entry and testing.
Over the past few years, IPL’s Services
team, which maintains and enhances a
number of the Highways Agency’s key
software applications, has delivered a
series of improvements to the tools
used by the Highways Agency and its
programme delivery contractors to enter
and test equipment data.
One of the most significant has been
the creation of a graphical user interface
with map-based views that staff can use
to model road situations and ensure that
an incident at a given location results in
the correct messages and speed limits
being displayed. Before, tools produced
tables of data that the user would have
to trawl through to ensure each sign was
displaying the correct message or speed
limit.
The ease with which the graphical
view can be interpreted means that the
time taken to test new equipment has
fallen by around 50%. It has also become
much easier to pinpoint and correct any
errors in configuration data.
In addition, IPL has speeded up the
entering of equipment data by creating
a set of default data, which accounts for
around 70% of the information required
when setting up a piece of equipment.
Pulling in the default data automatically
vastly reduces the time taken to
enter data and minimises the risk and
incidences of human error.
Real benefits
Russell Mead, Highways Agency technical
project manager for Traffic Management
Systems, says that these two
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